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Obama retrospective

My thoughts on Barack Obama one week after he stepped down as US president:

President Obama was a huge disappointment: Drone Master, Wall Street water boy, Rented Negro, Deporter-in-chief. To get his attention Black people had to protest and riot in the streets. He was, in effect, Bush III, more than I thought any Democrat could be. What little good he did is now being swept away by President Trump.

It is good that the US had a Black president. In the long run I think it will help weaken racist stereotypes. Obama and his family were the picture of grace and dignity. You could not ask for better. But the shock proved too much for the nation, even with its ideas about Exceptional Negroes. And now we must live through the grotesque White blacklash.

Obama squandered his moral authority as the country’s first Black president. Like Lincoln, his words could have lived for over a hundred years, the sort schoolchildren – and therefore the nation – would be made to learn. Instead he called the Baltimore rioters “thugs” and stood where Martin Luther King Jr once stood, 50 years before to give the “I Have a Dream” speech, and mouthed lizard-mouth Reagan:

“Legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into excuse-making for criminal behavior … And what had once been a call for equality of opportunity, the chance for all Americans to work hard and get ahead, was too often framed as a mere desire for government support, as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child and the bigotry of others was reason to give up on yourself.”

But I am disappointed in myself too for having had such faith and hope in this man. Ralph Nader, who I voted for twice, warned that Obama would do nothing for Black people. Obama, right in his own book, “The Audacity of Hope” (2006), pretty much agreed:

“An emphasis on universal, as opposed to race-specific, programs isn’t just good policy; it’s also good politics”

It was not Republican obstructionism that stopped him. He was New Black, a colour-blind racist. It is not for the government to uphold equality before the law – no, it is for Black men to be better fathers.

I thought by voting for him I was voting for me. But when he became president he started doing stuff I would never do. I thought maybe power was turning him bad. No, it was not that. It was his mindset. He believes in American exceptionalism, meaning US exceptionalism. He believes Black people are held back more by their own pathologies than by racism. His White mother likely believed the same.

There were two huge red flags even before the 2008 election. First, he threw his own pastor under the bus, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Second, there was all the money he accepted from big Wall Street banks. The writing was on the wall but I did not want to read it.

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Excellent analysis. I detest him: pompous, out of touch and most of all ineffective. Singularly, his only achievement was the dignified manner in which he and his family carried themselves thereby saliently calling into question many negative stereotypes about the so-called “Black family.”

You offer a shockingly simplistic assessment of the entire situation for a man who is very astute and even brilliant on so many levels, Abagond.

I think your expectations were way too high, just as the case with so many others who refused to grasp the full depths of white supremacy ideology.

Abagond, you are a man of high intelligence and depth. Please take a closer look at the the inapproriateness of over-personalizing things as shown in this statement from you: “I thought by voting for him I was voting for me. But when he became president he started doing stuff I would never do.”

Why would you even expect Obama to think like you, and how can you really claim he did things you “would never do,” since you have no idea what kinds of pressures to compromise, and other forced factors going on behind the scenes?

Did it occur to you that Obama played the role he was supposed to play in history? Maybe it was his presence that was necessary on a national stage to help pull back the veil off of hidden, systemic racism that so many denied with seriously premature pronouncements of America being post-racial?

Armchair critics are a dime a dozen. Most people would have committed suicide or homicide if they had to function under the ongoing threats and duress Obama had to face. Can you honestly say you would have handled things well under levels of obstruction that were unprecedented?

I wish I had been on the Internet in 2008. Maybe I would have seen it too. But, alas, I was benighted by my only news source, MSM. But when I did get on the Internet, around the time of Barama’s inauguration, it took me about eight months to conclude he was a fraud, after half a year of suspecting it. I was never impressed in the first place, BTW, and was a little mystified as to why people were. But by August 2009, I knew he was a fraud.

nomadAugust 21, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Up till now I have been taking a wait and see attitude towards Obama. Yeah he was surrounding himself with the same old oligarchy that has run things for past 2 decades, but I thought they might act as a kind of foil for the progressiveness he would inaugurate. But sellout on healthcare that seems to be in the works indicates that he is just what Rev. Wright said he was. A politician. Change we can believe in? Yeah, Wright.

yogibreeze
“. Singularly, his only achievement was the dignified manner in which he and his family carried themselves thereby saliently calling into question many negative stereotypes about the so-called “Black family.” ”
It was the Cosby Show. A high powered husband and wife with cute kids. What casting!

Hmmmm….
Isn’t it ironic? At the inauguration of Obama there was great euphoria, among many Americans. But especially black people. I remember screaming and signs declaring “We did it!”. A kind of hysteria. And here we are again eight years later. Another inauguration. Another hysteria. An opposite one this time. Fear instead of joy. Though the bookends of inaugurations represent opposite poles of hysteria, nevertheless. I must say this. How can I not? Hysteria repeats itself.

It’s sad for me to say this, but it’s disheartening to hear black folks say that they voted for him because he’s black. (I admit that’s part of my reason for voting for him.) But this society is all about putting images first. We want to see a black person in the highest office in the land, and we want to see a democrat in office after eight long years of George W. Bush. Barack Obama was, as many of us thought, the candidate we both need and want, even though at the end of the day, he was just another typical American politician pandering to the white population.

Granted, it was wrong that he received so much hate from the right, but their hatred is largely based on racism. They didn’t go after him for his policies. They went after him because he was a black man in the oval office.

In the end, we need to stop believing and hoping that black people in political offices are saviors of black people. In the end, they largely don’t care too much about the problems black folks face. I’m just theorizing here, but they pander to the general white population, because that’s where the power lies. That’s partly how Obama got elected, because he pandered mostly to left-leaning whites.

Here’s another reverse irony re Trump and Obama. One of the most prominent conspiracy theories about Obama from the right is that he’s a socialist, trying to impose some communist style governance on America. Now from the left a conspiracy theory subscribed to by all. Trump is a Russian stooge. That Putin does get around.

Abagond should have titled this post my exercise in dishonesty.
Charge #1 against Obama: “President Obama was a huge disappointment: Drone Master, Wall Street water boy, Rented Negro, Black pathologist-in-chief. To get his attention Black people had to protest and riot in the streets. He was, in effect, Bush III, more than I thought any Democrat could be. What little good he did is now being swept away by President Trump.”
In Obama’s defense, he never pretended to be anything other than what he turned out to be. Long before he became president, he was identified as a Chuck Robb, Bill Clinton, Democratic Leadership Council, right wing democrat.
Charge #2: “It was not Republican obstructionism that stopped him. He was New Black, a colour-blind racist. It is not for the government to uphold equality before the law – no, it is for Black men to be better fathers.”
Again, nothing new here. People who knew him wrote honest pieces about him, but people like Abagond refused to believe them because, “I thought by voting for him I was voting for me…There were two huge red flags even before the 2008 election. First, he threw his own pastor under the bus, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Second, there was all the money he accepted from big Wall Street banks. The writing was on the wall but I did not want to read it.”
The fault is not Obama’s but Abagond’s and those who think like him. In order to be honest, Abagond needed to state why he pushed facts aside and bought the public relation campaign. What we have instead is: “It is good that the US had a Black president. In the long run I think it will help weaken racist stereotypes. Obama and his family were the picture of grace and dignity.”
Whose racist stereotypes did their “grace and dignity” weaken, surely not the ignorant Tea party types, maybe, it weakened the sense of lack of self worth among Blacks? If that’s the case, there’s rhyme and reason to Obama’s Tough love speeches, making him a tough coach instead of a New Black, a colour-blind racist!
Abagond shares Obama’s “US exceptionalism”. Only in the USA could a member of a reviled minority become president, as long as he does the bidding of those with the real power! It’s that hope, and agreement with the program of upholding US supremacy, that made him overlook the facts. Nothing fundamentally wrong with the status quo that a few nonwhite faces at the top can’t cure.

“Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you: They don’t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon.

Go into any inner-city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn.

They know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things. […]

There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

⚑ His orchestrated rise from Illinois state senator to the US Senate between 2004 and 2008. I realized he had powerful connections that were operating behind the scenes. Plus, he was an unknown quantity who had not paid his dues on the local or national stage.

⚑ His praise of Reagan while on the campaign trail in 2004:

“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America…He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.

I think people just tapped into — he tapped into what people were already feeling, which was, we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Yes, the “excesses of the 60s and 70’s that made it possible for him to run for political office.

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I remember what my home neighborhood looked like before Reagan and what I looked like after twelve years of Reagan and Bush I. I remember the optimism of my family and neighbors before Reagan and the sense of despair after Reagan. Any politician that praised Reagan was not a politician I could support.

I never trusted, supported or voted for Obama. I took a lot of flak for not buying his “hope and change” marketing. It just hurts to see the devastation he left behind. Many of the Black people he sold down the river are still cheering him on as they float toward a gigantic waterfall. That hurts most of all.

“Many of the Black people he sold down the river are still cheering him on as they float toward a gigantic waterfall.”

Truer words have never been spoken. Black folk here in SC are STILL making excuses for his behind, even as they’re still reeling from the devastation left in his wake.

@Abagond…“The writing was on the wall but I did not want to read it.”
I know this piece was hard for you to write, which is why I appreciate your honesty in laying your hurt and disappointment on the table — and owning it. Don’t beat yourself up, Brother. Consider it a lesson learned.

“I remember what my home neighborhood looked like before Reagan and what I looked like after twelve years of Reagan and Bush I. I remember the optimism of my family and neighbors before Reagan and the sense of despair after Reagan. Any politician that praised Reagan was not a politician I could support.”

Regan was great for white people.

But Regan wasn’t the “fiscal conservative” that people pretend him to be. The U.S. deficit increased 130% under Regan and Obama seems blind to that in his comments about Regan.

What Regan did do was build prisons, ramp up the war on drugs, and allow tons and tons of cocaine to flow into the U.S. much of it directed at Black communities. U.S. imperalism in central America helped set up the drug trade while simultaneously fighting it.

“Changeling” is a very apt description for the 44th President. He seemed to have a different face for every specific audience he addressed.

What he did to the people of Grove Parc Plaza he wanted to do to everyone, especially Black folk, whom he holds in utter contempt.

There were a lot of complaints about Bush II and now Trump with their open slash and burn policies toward working class people. Obama was more of a laparoscopic surgeon; he was able to disembowel his unwary supporters with just one or two discreet cuts. Now that’s skill!

“What Regan did do was build prisons, ramp up the war on drugs, and allow tons and tons of cocaine to flow into the U.S. much of it directed at Black communities. U.S. imperalism in central America helped set up the drug trade while simultaneously fighting it.”

Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

I just listened to a Project Censored podcast today that discussed among other things, the way San Jose Mercury reporter, Gary Webb was pushed to the margins after he exposed the CIA/Central American/Crack Cocaine connection. That discussion starts at 48:00.http://projectcensored.org/brian-covert/

Perhaps the “War on Drugs” were not such a “failure” after all. It has helped certain people achieve objectives they couldn’t have otherwise.

He did a number on my community, too. Remember the farm crisis? In the 70s all the little farm towns in my area had healthy downtowns with small local businesses. By the end of the 80s most of those stores were vacant and boarded up. Many still look that way; those towns never did recover.

“…in the 70s all the little farm towns in my area had healthy downtowns with small local businesses. By the end of the 80s most of those stores were vacant and boarded up. Many still look that way; those towns never did recover.”

I remember those towns. They all seemed to have a drugstore, Woolworth’s, a diner or two, movie theater, hardware store, feed stores and a fully stocked IGA grocery store. Nearly all of the businesses were family owned.

Walmart destroyed the Reagan survivors. You are right, meth took a baseball bat to the rest.

I have no doubt that in the future, when research papers peer back through the annals of history concerning Obomber, he will solidly fit the description of a sociopath. Aggressive at times; charming at times; a liar sometimes and a lack of conscience regarding other people. To me, this man is certainly detached but has the keen ability to give the appearance as if he’s got it all together. At bottom, I see and internally troubled man who hasn’t outwardly expressed his situation as of yet. Give it time, it will self demonstrate at some point!

Yes! We had a movie theater, a five and dime, a bakery, a bowling alley, a hardware store, a clothes store, and one of those old-timey drugstores with a soda fountain. All locally owned. All gone. There were two grocery stores – only one survived (the IGA).

In those towns where the buildings are occupied again, they don’t hold the same type of businesses. It’s now antique stores and gift shops catering to the weekend tourists, not to the local community.

“At bottom, I see and internally troubled man who hasn’t outwardly expressed his situation as of yet. ” blakksage.

What’s inside is a puzzlement. Sheds tears for murdered children yet jokes about drone murder. If he is troubled it is not about things that trouble normal folks. He is not likely troubled by anything he has done but by the thought of deception being discovered. Of being unmasked. He is also every bit the narcissist Trump is. Everything is about him. ‘Trayvon looks like me’ for example. His personal animosity to those that challenged him, like Cornel West. His macho pose against Putin and bragging of killing Bin Laden. Narcissistic.

You have to wonder why he would, as Paul Craig Roberts says, align himself with evil. Great evil. And deceive the people as he did. When he was in a position to do so much good. All the good he was promising before he got elected. He is A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma.

@michaeljonbarker
“What Regan did do was build prisons, ramp up the war on drugs, and allow tons and tons of cocaine to flow into the U.S. much of it directed at Black communities. U.S. imperalism in central America helped set up the drug trade while simultaneously fighting it.”
Good observation. I had noticed this approach to policies by US government, domestic and abroad. Make things worse, or even create problems whole cloth, then go in and ‘fix’ them, looking like a hero in the process. Of course they don’t really ‘fix’ them. It creates a self perpetuating syndrome. I was going to call it the Munchausen by Proxy approach to politics. And I still will. But somebody beat me to it.https://normanpilon.com/2017/01/25/obamas-political-munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy-chelsea-manning-as-bait-james-petras-the-james-petras-website/

Man was B.S.ing since the infomercial. A regular Donald Trump/Bernie Sanders type who wins the class president election by promising to give everyone free soda, Pokemon cards, 10 CDs for 99 cents, tickets to the Aaliyah concert and free FuBu.

Second, there was all the money he accepted from big Wall Street banks.

Superior was the first of the deregulated go-go banks to go bust – at the time, the costliest failure ever. US taxpayers lost nearly half a billion dollars. Superior’s depositors lost millions and poor folk in Sen. Obama’s South Side district lost their homes.

Penny did not like paying $460 million. No, not one bit. What she needed was someone to give her Hope and Change. She hoped someone would change the banking regulators and the Commerce Department so she could get away with this crap.

Pritzker introduced Obama, the neophyte state senator, to the Ladies Who Lunch (that’s really what they call themselves) on Chicago’s Gold Coast. Obama got lunch, gold and better – an introduction to Robert Rubin. Rubin is a former Secretary of the Treasury, former chairman of Goldman Sachs and former co-chairman of Citibank. Even atheists recognized Rubin as the Supreme Deity of Wall Street.

Rubin opened the doors to finance industry vaults for Obama. Extraordinarily for a Democrat, Obama in 2008 raised three times as much from bankers as his Republican opponent.

An order of battle pitting a number of potentially combustible forces against one another had already become evident. On one side: a genuine grassroots desire to enshrine the legacy of America’s first black president in the city where his political career began; a megalomaniac mayor; and the desperate hopes of a devastated black neighborhood exploited by a great university’s passion to become an even greater one. On the other side: the same corps of dispossessed black Chicagoans and liberal white neighborhood activists who’ve been fighting off the imperial private university as a land-grabber and community-traducer for going on sixty years.

The meeting was called to order, and it soon became clear which side was going to win.

Demagoguery did not go unchallenged. “I believe you’re being misled, just as the community is being misled,” cried an elderly white woman with a fanny pack, the perfect specimen of the sort of hectoring Hyde Park neighborhood activist whom university flacks have been crossing the street to avoid since the 1950s. “They’ve created an emergency situation to make you think you need to give up park land to get the Obama library on the South Side.” An officer of the Washington Park Conservancy pointed out that trees standing when George Washington was president “would be cut down and replaced with a building.” One of Chicago’s most legendarily irascible community organizers, the Rev. Slim Coleman, pointed out that if the library really was supposed to be some kind of neighborhood charity, it would be sited in the far worse-off West Side………..

An older man reminded the younger ones—public radio station WBEZ pointed out that reaction to the library plans have generally split along generational lines—that “the University of Chicago has historically not been a good neighbor. Colored folks, Negroes, blacks, whatever you may call it, the University of Chicago won’t give you anything. Don’t trust the University of Chicago.”

Which is really the bottom line, isn’t it? Gentrification always poses a paradox: a geographical area might end up revitalized. But inexorably, that means the human beings who happen to live there cannot . . . Oh, hell, I sound like a professor. Much better was the way a woman who announced she’d been trained as a community organizer by Barack Obama put it: “Look out. We gonna be gone.”

It was all futile. A chant trumped logic: “Bring it on home! Bring it on home!” It produced in me that sinking feeling you get in the middle of an election season, in the moment when you know your guy can’t possibly win—when you hear a slogan you just know was devised in some back room, probably with the benefit of gigabytes worth of research reports, certainly focus-grouped. Worse, you hear these carefully massaged word formations bubbling forth sincerely from ordinary people’s mouths as if they had just come up with them on their own.

However, at the root of matter, the issue that is not being addressed, is the role that middle class Diaspora blacks play in supporting the power structure that so many of them claim to be against. Obama did not existing a vacuum. Scratch that. Obama did exist in a vacuum – a moral and intellectual one created by a black middle class that has abandoned any notion of social justice and black self-determination for some scraps from Massa’s table and the opportunity to elevate themselves over their lumpen (former) brethren.

Not trying to romanticize the poor blacks among us, but when middle class get their hands on something that can damage diaspora blacks, they make it so much worse. Gangsta Rap may have been started with Ice-T and Schooly-D, but it took a group led by architectural draftsman Ice Cube to really get it going . Don’t get me started on Howard Univerity’s Puff Daddy. If ever there is to be found the manifestation of “Screw You, I got mine”, it is the back middle class that has chosen to emulate their (much wealthier and secure) white counterparts. All we are seeing in Barack Obama is the same milquetoast middle-class amorality that mouths the same mealy-mouthed platitudes that are part and parcel of the New Black/Civil Rights/Right Wing/whoever he is trying to please at the moment dictionary. Whether its from some goddamn office memo, SixSigma silliness or presidential message – its all the same.

Simplistic,immature, and myopic….WTF did you think would happen? It’s EASY to be POTUS at home on your laptop.

I would love to be Presidentess of the US! Free room and board, vacation home, free transportation, extensive travel! Do the get a clothing and hairdressing allowance? If they do, I’m even more enthused. What’s the pay like?

How is it as a Canadian, I knew from the get-go that this guy would not affect any substantiative change? He was an admirer of Reagon that should have told people everything they had to know about him just as Trump comparing himself to Ol’ Hickory does.

“Allen Shaw, name one thing Obama did that your grandchildren will thank him for?”

A chicken in every pot? Oops, that was Herbert Hoover of Hooverville shanty town!

I think we as black people, felt a need to vote for that poor excuse for a black man.

I think we as black people need to do this even more! Let me explain…

Black people are the most critical people of their own people, than any other racial group. For the first time, black people supported a black man without raising an eye brow.

We as black people need our own brand of “black supremacy” but not the kind that white people support.

We need to not be so quick to throw our own people under the bus, just to appease white people.

We need to look the other way, when we see other black people, harming other racial groups, mainly white people but this could apply to other groups.

White people always give their own people the benifit of the doubt and passes for whatever they do, not black people.

We as black people need to stop being the moral compass by which other races of people are judged.

Let a news anchor stick a camera and mic in my face, then expect me to condemn a crime a black person has done. I’d be like…

“we need to see all the fact,first!”

“I don’t know, i wasn’t there, were you?”

“everyone deserves their day in court”

And at the very least, i’d be like….

“No comment” -_-

I’m not messing around with these white people….its been getting worse.

Throwing our own under the bus and kissing white people’s butt hasn’t gotten us ANYWHERE! Think its time to change our strategy?

So i say all that to say this….Yes, i would still vote for obama if i had a chance to do it all over again.

Why you ask? because for all this time, we as black people always fought for every kind of access there is to be had in America. It would have been a waste of all the courage and suffering our ancestors went through for us to just say…..”I voted for a black president for the first time in my life and it was for nothing.”

Looking back at my 2 votes for obama for 2 terms, they weren’t for him but for those who fought and died, so that i could have the chance to even be able to vote for the bum and for him to even be elected for the highest office, across the land.

if not for nothing, we can as a race, scratch another accomplishment black people has achieved off the board.

@Afrofem…“Changeling” is a very apt description for the 44th President. He seemed to have a different face for every specific audience he addressed.”

I’ve called him that ever since I started watching and writing about him because you’re right — different face for every constituent place and lying to them all (except for the banksters of course — he saved his skinnin’ and grinnin’ and gettin’ on his knees for all that cash).

“What he did to the people of Grove Parc Plaza he wanted to do to everyone, especially Black folk, whom he holds in utter contempt.”

I’d say SPECIFICALLY to Black folk BECAUSE of that utter contempt he holds — and has displayed on more than one occasion!

Obama was more of a laparoscopic surgeon; he was able to disembowel his unwary supporters with just one or two discreet cuts. Now that’s skill!

“I had noticed this approach to policies by US government, domestic and abroad. Make things worse, or even create problems whole cloth, then go in and ‘fix’ them, looking like a hero in the process. Of course they don’t really ‘fix’ them. It creates a self perpetuating syndrome.”

Yeah it does — and still is! Thanks for that link! It was exactly what I was thinking when he magnanimously commuted Manning’s sentence, but didn’t say immediately, which of course, leaves open the possibility for that clown now in the seat, to try to undo it since he feels, “Manning is an ungrateful traitor who never should’ve been released”: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-manning-234207 SMDH

gro jo and others: I do not need to waste my time explaining to individuals who have made up their minds.

“I have made up my mind, do not confuse me with facts”

I only wish I could write with the great skill many of the commentators on this site do. I am sure each and every one of them have held extremely high level duties and responsibilities during their life.

They surly could speak of such responsibilities and the success they had. How else could they be so critical of President Obama.

“I only wish I could write with the great skill many of the commentators on this site do. I am sure each and every one of them have held extremely high level duties and responsibilities during their life.

They surly could speak of such responsibilities and the success they had. How else could they be so critical of President Obama.”
Allen Shaw, such modesty is silly, All I asked is that YOU tell me why your grandchildren should remember Obama. When you have the little ones gathered around your rocker, what will you tell them about the time when a colossus such as Obama occupied the white house? How is it a waste of your time to give us an aperçu?

Gro jo and friends: Quite frankly either you are too dense to understand or your mind is made up and you do not want to be confused with facts.”You “pazz” your money and you takes yr choice”.

At the end of the Trump/Pence Administration you will understand.

As I said before each of you probably have held high offices were you were completely successful in the management of all things around you and therefore are in the position of judging others. I am sure you put all of those powerful White people in their place and did not take any crap out of any of them.

I can tell from your writing that you (all) are “all powerful people”.

“Allen Shaw
Gro jo and friends: Blah, blah blah blah facts. Blah blah blah choice…At the end of the Trump/Pence Administration you will understand. Blah, blah blah blah. I am sure you put all of those powerful White people in their place and did not take any crap out of any of them.”
I understand that your Obama never missed a chance to impress by coming down hard on Blacks every chance he got, White misdeeds were another matter.
Do you remember the nationally televised beer klatch with the cop and the Harvard professor?
Being the kind of Negro I think you are, you probably had a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes from being so proud that a black man, holding the highest office in the land would stoop to kissing some racist cop’s ass on prime time tv. My reaction was one of revulsion.
The way you keep harping on the powerful White people theme tells me you are a worshiper of “power” even to the point of worshiping the semblance of it. I never held high office, but I did supervise whites. I never took any crap from them or anybody else. I did my job as I saw fit, damn anybody who didn’t like it. When I left, I had zero regrets.

Allen Shaw, since you can’t name a single thing Obama did to earn your grandchildren’s admiration, I’ll tell you that, in my book, the forced resignation of general Stanley Allen McChrystal after the latter was insubordinate earned Obama grudging respect from me. See, it wasn’t that hard to find some good in the man was it? You try it.

Why you ask? because for all this time, we as black people always fought for every kind of access there is to be had in America. It would have been a waste of all the courage and suffering our ancestors went through for us to just say…..”I voted for a black president for the first time in my life and it was for nothing.”

If you can’t answer Gro Jo’s question then the bolded part of the above quote is all that matters. Your whole post, as is was Abagond’s and the rest of black people’s justification,was just a neurotic defense. A defense against truth. A defense against action.

That long list of posts that Abagond has up there is just a neurotic defense against what was happening right in front of everybody to see. “It can’t be true! It can’t have been for nothing! Change! ” You will learn. You will learn what we in the Caribbean and in Africa have known for 50 years now. You will learn.

“Anything except an admittance that none of you have a clue about the responsibilities of the President ‘s job and the active part the congress took to keep him from succeeding.

You just did not like that man and found every thing wrong with his work. He is gone now so you can start paying attention to President Trump.”
Did congress prevent him from firing McChrystal? No. Did congress make him go to that church, where Dylan Roof gunned down his victims, to sing Amazing Grace instead of announcing a program to unleash war against domestic terrorists like Roof? No. The only thing congress didn’t want to work with him on was cutting Social Security. Who do you think would have been hurt more severely had they agreed to work with him?

Yes I did like the man and I believe he did an outstanding job. If he would have been White all of you would be screaming about what a wonderful President he was. But because you thought he would be a King and did not understand the limitations of his office, especially with a hostile congress you started finding fault with him.

Just stop and think about your comment about his failures.

You believe he should have been a President for the Black people and he should have disregarded all others. “WRONG”!

Who would have been harmed if congress would have supported him? I do not believe you can say, I know I do not have a clue.

Whatever all of you think when you are given a job you do not spend your life helping out people of one group alone. No person is ever given a job of responsibility if they are unable to be even handed.

So the next time you vote for a Black to hold a position in a “national office” be sure you understand that that person is going to represent Blacks, Whites Jews, Christians, Muslims and all other individuals equally. The majority of the Presidents job is dealing with other nations. You do not even seem to recognize that.

To expect anything else is to be a fool. If you want a Black leader vote him or her into a Black organization that is advocating the Black agenda. Example Louis Farrakhan Sr. or Jesse Jackson when he was working with the Black organizations.

“Did congress make him go to that church, where Dylan Roof gunned down his victims, to sing Amazing Grace instead of announcing a program to unleash war against domestic terrorists like Roof?” What do you really know about any of his policies?” You have been too busy complaining about nothing to really get into the duties of the President of the United States.

Finally, while President Obama was in office more Blacks were hired by the government than any time in the past. Watch the employment status, now that President Trump is the main man.

I think you misunderstand the point we are trying to make. No one expected Obama to be an imperial President. Like Bush 2. We know a president has to juggle special interests.

What was expected was something like a return of Glass-Steagal (a bad idea)., a proper stimulus pan, a proper healthcare plan. Instead, he choked. He was low energy. Unlike Democrats like Truman and even Carter, got slapped around. His low energy cost him the Senate and Congress. Had stood up and fought when he was strong., he wouldn’t we wouldn’t have had a problem with him.

His low energy first term cost him the respect of people like, me. Like Bush, he was a man who was out of his depth.

Well, I can give you all a selfish reason as to why I voted for Obama back in 2008: because it was an opportunity to vote for someone who looked like me, nevermind the minutae of his exact racial heritage. And it was a wonderful feeling seeing that man win the election and swagger his way into the White House.

Less wonderful was seeing the man knuckle down to the bankers, plead with the opposition in vain and tap-dance around issues affecting black Americans unless directly confronted over them. But part of me expected that. If Obama had gone full-bore during his first week the way Trump’s doing right now, I dare say some assassin’s bullet would have cut his presidency very short.

Besides, I thought black Americans had enough of waiting around for their Moses to lead them out of Egypt and into the promised land. Instead of spending 40 years in the wilderness, we’ve spend the past 40 waiting at the banks of the Red Sea.

@satanforce
“Had stood up and fought when he was strong., he wouldn’t we wouldn’t have had a problem with him. ”
He would have been fighting for something he didn’t believe in. He never had any intention of doing those things. From the beginning he was a fake. He was hired not to fight. To throw the fight. That was the Trojan Horse’s assignment was.

He’s only low energy when it comes to stuff he only pretends to care about. He’ll expend a lot of energy for something he really wants, like a Grand Bargain to cut social security, or a TPP corporate takeover, or gun control, or starting a war with Syria or Russia. No lack of energy there. No lack of dogged persistence. Also he diligently kept his Tuesday assassination schedule. He was no slouch in the things he really cares about.

Question. If the white man takes a Negro and places him in a position of power, is that still a black achievement? If the white man chooses your leader for you, is that still a black leader, (don’t know how to make trademark signs but imagine them behind ‘the white man’)

Abagond: Where did you get the idea that I said he should forget the Blacks. Please read my comments. Presidents propose Congress passes laws. You seem to ignore that fact. What did Senator McConnell say?

satanforce: You should study the constitution of the United States (see above) The President proposed the congress refused to pass the laws. The President used Executive Orders to accomplish many things. Why don’t you take a look at his Executive Orders.

Abagond: The President does not deport people, the Justice Department and the Courts do that. If your friend was deported they had done something that was illegal.The President signed an Executive Order keeping millions of “Dreamers from being deported.

satanforce:”His low energy first term cost him the respect of people like, me. Like Bush, he was a man who was out of his depth.” What nonsense your lack of understanding of the power of the congress makes for a laughable moments.

Macklyons: Thanks for having such an understanding. By the way are you keeping up with the current endeavor of President Trump? He is a White Billionaire with the entire congress in disarray. Many of his Executive Orders are going to be challenged and found to be unconstitutional. He is making a wind storm. Are the commentators on this site suggesting that President Obama could have done such foolishness.

As I have stated most of those individuals who are attempting to judge have very little knowledge of the real world of US Politics and they just seem to be hurt because a Black man could not be a Roosevelt.

In the end the only true fact is a Black person has been the President of the United States and saw the economy return and was elected for a second term because he realized he was the “President of the United States and not the President of the Black people of United States.

President Barrack Obama served his eight years in office with great skill. He protected the military service personnel, keeping them from harms way while not pursuing wasted war projects. Many Blacks were hired into government positions and many private companies and corporations advanced Black people within their structure. He allowed his cabinet to perform their functions in spite of the lies that are told about him. He assisted in giving us the Affordable Care Act which allowed millions of Blacks to obtain medical care. The Republican Party will not dare to take away the Health Care of the 20 to 30 million people that “Obama Care’ provides. They will have to replace it with a better plan.

Yes I did approve of him and will continue to advance reasons why he was a successful leader. Most of the comments on this site speak of trivia and the actions suggested have to be done by congress.

Please, let the Black people break the barrel that they try to keep their fellow Blacks in. Please learn to study politics before preparing judgments. Please understand the problems that any Black has when they are projected into the “White Power Structure” at the highest levels. Please do not be a part of their enemy group, they have plenty of enemies with prejudiced Whites and jealous co-workers.

“Please learn to study politics before preparing judgments. Please understand the problems that any Black has when they are projected into the “White Power Structure” at the highest levels.”
.

Shaw, Black people aren’t “projected” into the white power structure. They are PROMOTED or CHOSEN/SELECTED into the white exclusive club, if they don’t refuse the assignment. It’s not against the law to say, “no thank you” to a job offer.

Obomber chose to accept his appointment (oozing with half hidden District of Columbia excrement) when he consented to doing the bidding of the white power structure, i.e. like bombing/droning Brown and Black people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Somalia … while funding Israel’s land grab/oppression of the Palestinian people, becoming the world’s biggest arms dealer, etc, etc, etc, etc!

It doesn’t take a Political Science degree to discern what type of man or president he (or anyone else) is. All it takes is about an ounce of common sense (which seems to be in very rare supply nowadays).

“Macklyons: Thanks for having such an understanding. By the way are you keeping up with the current endeavor of President Trump? He is a White Billionaire with the entire congress in disarray. Many of his Executive Orders are going to be challenged and found to be unconstitutional. He is making a wind storm. Are the commentators on this site suggesting that President Obama could have done such foolishness.”

No. No one is suggesting that. If you want to set the bar that low, then even a Magic Eight Ball would be a better president.

If the white man takes a Negro and places him in a position of power, is that still a black achievement?

No. I don’t believe in ‘leaders’. Leaders can be targeted. Facilitators is a better term. Call this selfish, but if you are not representing my interests, you will not get my vote, regardless of what political stripe one adheres to. They can sponsor and put any clown or puppet into office.

Fan “Projected?” Nice play on words. Forgive me for giving you an opportunity to ignore my comments because I used an incorrect word. Way to go! Bet u felt good when you said “gotcha”.

Abagon: i do not know what is suggested. I stated that President Trump is writing Executive Orders and I believe that it takes time to properly prepare Executive Orders; yet out they are coming and the congress seems to be mute.

Herneith: I am not sure if I commented on a “Negro being placed in power”; however many individuals are selected to hold positions in higher offices settings. The word leader is an accepted word, regardless of your personal choice. No political leader can give each and every constituent their desires; therefore I do not know how you can vote for anyone. I vote for a person who I believe will do the best job they can do.

Politics is the art of compromise.

I have put too much time on this subject; however since I believe that President Obama was an outstanding President for the current time frame I want to be sure that at least one voice is heard complimenting him.

Bet many of you wish you had the “skill and luck” to have such an opportunity to hold such a high office.

What is that old saying “You will be damned if you do and dammed if you don’t”.

Herneith
If the white man takes a Negro and places him in a position of power, is that still a black achievement?
“No. I don’t believe in ‘leaders’. Leaders can be targeted. Facilitators is a better term. Call this selfish, but if you are not representing my interests, you will not get my vote,”
If only more black people felt like that. The 2012 election proved they didn’t. The 90% black approval rating throughout his presidency proves that they didn’t. He said if he had ran a third time he’d get elected. Blacks would vote for him again. Probably at the same rate they voted for him before. And most of us still think that his presidency was a great black achievement.

“Bet many of you wish you had the “skill and luck” to have such an opportunity to hold such a high office.”
Skill and luck had nothing to do with it. It was a top down operation by powerful forces. Rich forces. Secret forces. At least one of them foreign.

An example of the type of person you are referring to, nice kerchief heads is our current Police Chief, Mark Saunders. The City of Toronto police department has a carding policy supposedly to run ‘intelligence’ on ‘gangs’. Guess who they stop disproportionately? Well did this fool get rid of this policy on his ascension to office? Nope, he tried to justify it. He is a stereotypical self-loathing POS! Google him and carding in Toronto. That’s why I laugh when they say Canadians are friendly and polite, they’re more insidious. Give me a bombastic, lippy Yank any day! Remember all, you don’t have to be white to subscribe to a white supremacist ideology.

“Forgive me for giving you an opportunity to ignore my comments because I used an incorrect word. Way to go! Bet u felt good when you said “gotcha”.”

@Shaw
No, not really. Is that how the patients entertain each other at your psychiatric hospital??

Have you ever considered getting a real hobby … like a library card??

No one here, including me, cares much about your incorrect words. It’s your incorrect, uncommon, patently upside-down thoughts (including your BUBBLE-ISH ways of seeing things) that astound the readers here. It’s as if your alien points of view are rooted in some distant far away galaxy where life/culture/communication works totally different than it does here on Earth.

“By the way are you keeping up with the current endeavor of President Trump? He is a White Billionaire with the entire congress in disarray.”

LOL!!! Trump is not a billionaire! He is terrified of releasing his tax returns because they would show him to be a puffed up phony. A mere millionaire who has not paid income taxes in over twenty years.

His real skills are convincing suckers that he is a successful “businessman” and living on other people’s money. Trump is way, way out of his depth with the presidency. He thinks he can just play a hyped up reality television role as POTUS, tweet his rants at 2am and continue with life as usual in NYC (with New Yorkers picking up the huge security tab) while VP Pence runs the show in DC. We will see how long that continues unabated. Something will give.

The Congress is not in “disarray”. They are dominated by Repubs who approve of Trump’s line of bovine excrement. They use the Prez as cover while they plan and execute their dirty deeds with help from the Dems.

Tool of the powerful, the rich and the secret.
“President Obama’s own work in 1983 for Business International Corporation, a CIA front that conducted seminars with the world’s most powerful leaders and used journalists as agents abroad, dovetails with CIA espionage activities conducted by his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham in 1960s post-coup Indonesia on behalf of a number of CIA front operations, including the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Ford Foundation. Dunham met and married Lolo Soetoro, Obama’s stepfather, at the East-West Center in 1965. Soetoro was recalled to Indonesia in 1965 to serve as a senior army officer and assist General Suharto and the CIA in the bloody overthrow of President Sukarno.”https://archive.org/details/WayneMadsen-BarackObama-AllInTheCompany

@sondis “if not for nothing, we can as a race, scratch another accomplishment black people has achieved off the board.”
“White people always give their own people the benifit of the doubt and passes for whatever they do, not black people.”

satanforce @sondis “No. We don’t need First Blacks. Just good ones”.
“You will learn. You will learn what we in the Caribbean and in Africa have known for 50 years now. You will learn.”

Linda says,

Satanforce, it’s not the same – apples and oranges

look at what our ancestors had to go through in the Caribbean and Africa for black people to take charge and run our own countries.

black Americans are NOT in the same position as we are

they are a “minority” population, trying to compete with and live with a white majority government and population

In Jamaica, we don’t have a white government or majority population that we have to fight against so that our civil rights are maintained

we have a white/brown minority that is silently selling Jamaica out, with the consent of our black/brown government, while our black police force is killing black men. (but that’s another story for another time)

In Jamaica, we can vote for sh’tty or good black PMs or candidates all day long because we have that option

black Americans don’t – they can only choose between good or bad white president or candidates – because that is their reality

As Sondis said, white people will always protect their own, they come together and close ranks when its time — No Matter What

in white majority countries: (USA, Canada, Europe)

black Americans/ black & brown people will be their puppets, who have to “play along to get along” because we have no end game in these countries – so we remain the losers

(the Jews did it but they had an end game and are now members of the white supremacy club- that was their goal)

In Africa and the Caribbean, we have an end game, with faulty planning and implementation (selling out to China) with shaky goals

but I guess black Americans on this blog need to vent their feelings about the first and ONLY black president they ever had — so let me mind my business

Macklyons: Thanks for having such an understanding. By the way are you keeping up with the current endeavor of President Trump? He is a White Billionaire with the entire congress in disarray. Many of his Executive Orders are going to be challenged and found to be unconstitutional. He is making a wind storm.

I can’t help but keep up with the slow-motion train wreck that is the Trump presidency, although the recent EOs point towards jokers like Steve Bannon actually running the show. Bannon and Co. makes the policies. Trump is just the chump who signs the papers and makes loud noises to satisfy his largely rural and rural-minded white base.

Are the commentators on this site suggesting that President Obama could have done such foolishness.

See abagond’s answer.

@ Afrofem

LOL!!! Trump is not a billionaire! He is terrified of releasing his tax returns because they would show him to be a puffed up phony. A mere millionaire who has not paid income taxes in over twenty years.

Just noting that Trump’s current estimated net worth stands at #3.7 billion, but that probably includes his own brand name (TRUMP) and the highly inflated values of his real estate holdings. As far as liquid assets goes, he’s probably in danger of having the pot his pisses in repoed (and the window’s been bricked up for non-payment long ago).

@ An Scríbhneoir Gael-Mheiriceánach

Bernie Sanders would be a better president than Trump. Or Obama.

I highly doubt that. Besides, BernieBros were part of the reason why Trump’s in office in the first place. Many were so upset over their awesome-cool candidate being brushed off in favor of The Pre-Selected One (HRC) that most of them took their votes and went home.

@ Herneith

Overt vs. Covert. At least the former is refreshing and gives you a crystal-clear idea of where one stands.

Abagond,
Thank you for pointing out that I used a moderated word.
Let me rephrase my reply to Satanforce using a non-moderated version of my reply to his “cirke jerk” jab: “past tense and past participle of defecate, er, Satanforce, no need to be jealous, Apportune and I will gladly make room for you in our “cirkejerk””. Does this meet your exacting criteria?

In Jamaica, we don’t have a white government or majority population that we have to fight against so that our civil rights are maintained

No. We have a black one that we have to fight against so that our civil rights are maintained. That is what it means to live in a democracy. Riights are not earned, but are constantly secured by political action – legitamte or otherwise.

we have a white/brown minority that is silently selling Jamaica out, with the consent of our black/brown government,

Our excellent Affirmative Action Program has fixed that imperfect racial ratio. Besides, our issues are class based, not racial. And I have no intentionof sitting still while being squeezed by a lumpen that insists on behaving like the extras from “Planet of the Apes” and an Upper Class power structure that have had their heads up their ass for so long that they see their own shit and scream Black Power!!!! Or in this case Black and Yellow Power!!!! The Chinese investment has been hyped and over-exaggerated. They can do nothing for us.

The onlyway to winis to combine forces with like-minded people, especially from majority-black areas, and the international immigrant community.

while our black police force is killing black men. (but that’s another story for another time)

Those men are mostly of the Bleached race. And if you’ve seen what I’ve seen, as in personally, as in with my fellow middle-class frienns, who got caught up in a certain route – you’d be okay with that. Mark you , the program could be a bit more focused, a bit more guided. And we are working on that.

In Jamaica, we can vote for sh’tty or good black PMs or candidates all day long because we have that option

Busta, Mike Manley and Eddie Seaga would like to have a word with or two with you. Those guys are indeed proof that HBD theories about majority black countries are wrong.

“Trying to make heads or tails of that nonsensical drabble … Still can’t.”

” He and I sometimes disagree, but I have great respect for his powers of logic and reason; I hold him in the highest esteem.”

Beware of fake white people who mouth out loud words like “great respect” and “highest esteem” to Black people! If they truly respected us or held us in high esteem, they would demonstrate it by their actions, not by their cow excrement.

Do you ever get tired of sucking up?? You seem to suck up to just about anyone, EXCEPT the person or people you ought to be sucking up to.
If you had a lick of sense, you’d suck up to Taotesean, Sharina and Herneith as if your life depended on it!

Nonsensical? As if you don’t know what a necrophiliac is… as you yourself introduced that very term to this site followed up by an eventual weak-azz/fake apology and a self-imposed short ban (a mere 10 days?) on posting.

Then you think everything/everyone is supposed to be okay as if nothing happened and that you’re a regular accepted member of this site as if we have all forgotten what and who you are! Adding insult to injury you recently disrespect Taotesan again, but this time you drag in Herneith and Sharina without provocation. You truly are a POS. Now – ask me how I really feel! Don’t get me started on those racist chimp pics you posted here, or your other insults and slights.

I’ve made it my job to remind you that the real you is known and remembered for who you really are, for as long as you remain here.

I think I saw President Obama through rose-colored glasses, but your analysis seems to be pretty accurate. IF anything Obama’s presidency truly gave an up to date version of racism in the USA. It will continue to change in it’s many forms. From slavery to mass incarceration to … what’s next? It will be the people that make change for the better, the politicians aren’t going to do it.

I can tell you are very disappointed. I am sorry Obama turned out to be like this. I do agree that it’s good that you (US) got a black person as a president but he wasn’t perfect. Though I have a feeling he’ll be remembered in more idealized terms because of his successor.

A personal question (I apologize in advance if I’m overstepping the line): what did you think of Obama in 2012? Did you vote for him then?

I think US-ians are facing a somewhat new thing for them (which is a totally “normal” thing for many of us): that you don’t really vote FOR someone but AGAINST someone else… People are kind of forced to choose the lesser evil.

“If Obama had gone full-bore during his first week the way Trump’s doing right now, I dare say some assassin’s bullet would have cut his presidency very short.”
It’s not as easy to kill a president as you make it sound. Four presidents were assassinated, two were rumored to have been assassinated and seventeen plots to assassinate a president failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots#Barack_Obama. Despite not going “full-bore” two attempts were made on his life. It seems that people on this blog will come up with all manner of specious arguments to avoid a simple truth: Obama was a slick public relations trick played on Blacks with their willing cooperation.
“gro jo Such a little to talk about for 8 years…Just stop and think about your comment about his failures.

You believe he should have been a President for the Black people and he should have disregarded all others. “WRONG”!

Who would have been harmed if congress would have supported him? I do not believe you can say, I know I do not have a clue.

Whatever all of you think when you are given a job you do not spend your life helping out people of one group alone. No person is ever given a job of responsibility if they are unable to be even handed.

So the next time you vote for a Black to hold a position in a “national office” be sure you understand that that person is going to represent Blacks, Whites Jews, Christians, Muslims and all other individuals equally. The majority of the Presidents job is dealing with other nations. You do not even seem to recognize that.”
Allen Shaw, you do a great job arguing against strawmen, try arguing against something I actually wrote. I challenge you to find anything I wrote that matches the nonsense you attribute to me. Obama inherited an economic crisis where even establishment economists were calling for nationalization of financial institutions, and massive spending to keep the economy from crashing. Billions were wasted on companies that ended up in bankruptcy. He should have also spent billions on job programs for youths, with all the graft that such programs entail. You don’t seem to realize that your crab barrel argument implies that people like Obama have a right to use Blacks as steppingstones with no obligation to them. The reason the crabs in the barrel cling to the one getting out, is because he stands on top of them and they feel they should get something in return. What’s wrong with that?
LOL, ARE YOU EXPECTING TRUMP TO BE “EVEN HANDED”? I hope you’ll write Trump to remind him that he’s the president of all the people, not just some.
“You just did not like that man and found every thing wrong with his work. He is gone now so you can start paying attention to President Trump.”
The following is proof that I’ve been paying attention to Trump. Where’s your assessment of him?https://abagond.wordpress.com/2017/01/20/guide-to-trump/

“Obama was a slick public relations trick played on Blacks with their willing cooperation.”
Yes but it has got to have been something more. They didn’t just cooperate. They became his fervent advocates and would viciously attack anyone who criticized him no matter how valid the criticism. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of blatant betrayal black approval ratings were through the roof. I suggest something a bit stronger than PR was used on us. Weapons grade PR. Brainwashing. Cognitive infiltration. Social engineering. Whatever. We have been manipulated by those powerful rich secret forces and have been transformed from advocates of civil rights to advocates of empire. By the insidious weapon: Barack Hussein Obama.

“Stanley Ann Dunham in 1960s post-coup Indonesia on behalf of a number of CIA front operations”
You see, his mother was CIA. The grandparents who raised him were CIA. The grandmother, as a bank president, probably laundered money. As a banker, she couldn’t have been too rich because Barack had to apply for scholarships, apparently posing as a Kenyan national to do it, and he had to have his Harvard education financed by Saudi Arabia. Get the picture? Of this ‘all in the family’ background? He worked for a CIA front. He never knew his African father and his black mentor had CIA connections. Get the picture? He is the only president in history to have and alias. If it doesn’t look like a duck but quacks like a duck, what the heck is it? The apple does not fall far from the tree.

Allen Shaw, you are a comedian, the kind people laugh at. I used direct quotes from you and you, absurdly, claim that I didn’t read what you wrote! WTF, do you ever read what you write? Where’s your assessment of Trump? I posted a long article by Joe Kloc showing up Trump for the sewer rat he is, show me where you’ve done something similar?

““Obama was a slick public relations trick played on Blacks with their willing cooperation.”
Yes but it has got to have been something more. They didn’t just cooperate. They became his fervent advocates and would viciously attack anyone who criticized him no matter how valid the criticism. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of blatant betrayal black approval ratings were through the roof. I suggest something a bit stronger than PR was used on us. Weapons grade PR. Brainwashing. Cognitive infiltration. Social engineering. Whatever.”
Qh, okay, when you’ve nailed it down, come back and tell us what it was, meanwhile, I’ll go with vicarious empowerment. People like Allen Shaw are able to claim that Obama didn’t do what he wanted to do because they are used to being emasculated. I don’t buy it Obama did exactly, or pretty close to what he intended. Pinkney is a clown. Who still wears such outlandish uniforms?

“You did not read my past comments. I said I will not try to list any of President Obama’s achievements because u will not care what I say.

Let history speak for itself.”

“WTF, do you ever read what you write?”

@ gro jo

Having a normal discourse with Mr, Shaw about anything he imagines is a topic worthy of his commentary always devolves into a thing much like trying to have an intelligent discussion about rocket telemetry with a can of colorless (or green) paint.

Hence the “bobble” and the “potato” – which were not accidental nicknames, but accurate descriptions of what’s really going on.

His style is also very much like a Hit & Run driver.
He hits this site consistently with some bombastic something or other. Always, without fail, he accuses anyone who questions the correctness of his view with any BS that he uses to disqualify himself from having to answer to, defend, debate or argue his ALTERNATIVE facts.

I didn’t see this but it certainly fits with what I’m saying about putting Obamites in a trance.
“Perhaps you recall that, during the 2008 Primary race, there were several large Obama events where the audience was slowly chanting “O-bam-AH, O-bam-AH,” right out of an old Star Trek episode in which Kirk and his crew were dealing with a society under the hypnotic control of a high priest who turned out to be a computer. I watched one of these Obama campaign rituals on television—and suddenly the chanting stopped on a dime. I assumed Democratic operatives in the hall shut it down. They didn’t want the viewing audience at home to think O’s candidacy was a ceremonial invocation or an MKULTRA sub-project.”https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/obama-is-back-and-this-is-what-will-happen/

Obama is expressing support for the protests against the Trump Muslim ban. According to Democracy Now:

“Former President Barack Obama also spoke out against Donald Trump and in favor of the massive protests against Trump’s immigration ban. On Monday, Obama’s spokesperson, Kevin Lewis, said, “Citizens exercising their constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake. … The president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.”

This from a former prez who killed hundreds of Muslims with drones and bombs, etc.

The second level of hypocrisy is his newfound love of the Constitution which he shredded every chance he got, from the organized multi-city crackdown on Occupy Wall Street to National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions that empower the President to arrest and indefinitely detain any citizen for any reason.

@Afrofem…“This from a former prez who killed hundreds of Muslims with drones and bombs, etc.
The second level of hypocrisy is his newfound love of the Constitution which he shredded every chance he got, from the organized multi-city crackdown on Occupy Wall Street to National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions that empower the President to arrest and indefinitely detain any citizen for any reason.

Allen Shaw, you are a comedian, the kind people laugh at
People like Allen Shaw are able to claim that Obama didn’t do what he wanted to do because they are used to being emasculated.
Having a normal discourse with Mr, Shaw about anything he imagines is a topic worthy of his commentary always devolves into a thing much like trying to have an intelligent discussion about rocket telemetry with a can of colorless (or green) paint.

Hence the “bobble” and the “potato” – which were not accidental nicknames, but accurate descriptions of what’s really going on.

“Pinkney is a clown. Who still wears such outlandish uniforms?”
Damn, gro jo, Criticize the man’s words not what he looks like. Oh, I mean, Why don’t you criticize the man’s words not what he looks like. Why are you so superficial? And lay off the ad hominems, why don’t you?

Hey Deb. Bet they wont report that on MSM. Because MSM is designed to keep us in the dark. They are co conspirators with Obama and the ‘economic terrorists’. Max Keiser. I’d vote for him. He’s planning to run for congress I think.

Of course not! Not that it matters to the Changeling now — he’s out! It’s his “faithful followers who’ll be gob-smacked when they finally put 2 +2 together how he hoodwinked them regarding that sh*t! As for voting for Keiser, before ANYBODY with whom I’m not so familiar, gets me to pull that lever — gotta do my own diggin’!

@Deb
“As for voting for Keiser, before ANYBODY with whom I’m not so familiar, gets me to pull that lever — gotta do my own diggin’!”
True that. I’ve been watching him for a while now. Very informative on the economic stuff. Stuff, like I say, they never cover on MSM (unless they’ve changed since I stopped watching). Check him out.

@nomad…“Very informative on the economic stuff. Stuff, like I say, they never cover on MSM (unless they’ve changed since I stopped watching). Check him out.”
Now you know the MSM ain’t changing, they’d have to do some REAL journalism work instead of just parroting what they’re told to say by the government if they did! I’ll keep my eye on Keiser, Brother.

“It’s his “faithful followers who’ll be gob-smacked when they finally put 2 +2 together how he hoodwinked them regarding that sh*t!”

Judging by the push back from the Obama faithful in this comment community, it will take them a very long time to put “2+2 together”. Some of them are still lecturing Obama skeptics about how “we don’t understand” their hero, or ” we don’t know about his responsibilities”, etc. Even when confronted with empirical evidence and links to trusted news sources, the Obamatons, still deny the dirty deeds of their champion.

Continuity. CNN Trumps Economic Advisory Counsel meeting privately (secretly?) at this moment. Who is at his right hand? The CEO of Blackstone. When government unites with corporations to govern, that’s fascism.

“If he would have been White all of you would be screaming about what a wonderful President he was. ” Shaw, I think.
No we wouldn’t. We would have been protesting. Can you imagine How angry we would be if a white president had said the things to us that Obama said? Or neglected us so maliciously? We would have reacted much the same as we are reacting to Trump, whose policies are very similar. He is, in effect, Obama in white face.
I’m still reviewing the Obama years. No retrospective would be complete without stating that he was a war criminal. Yes, I know, Bush was too. But we talking about Obama here. He took war crime to whole new level. Mechanizing and normalizing it. Making it so we don’t even mention it. Like Chris Hedges said, it’s unspeakable. What he meant is its unspoken about. Here. Reflect upon the beginning of his bloody crimes, as Trump begins his own.

“Obama would write his own name in the black book of U.S. imperial terrorism, later telling White House aides that “it turns out I’m pretty good at killing people” while commanding a drone program that became “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times” (Noam Chomsky). Among the many grisly scenes Obama will carry to his well-heated grave, one occurred early in his presidency in the first week of May 2009, a U.S. air-strike killed more than ten dozen civilians in Bola Boluk, a village in western Afghanistan’s Farah Province. Ninety-three of the dead villagers torn apart by U.S. explosives were children. Just 22 were males 18 years or older. As the New York Times reported:

“In a phone call played on a loudspeaker on Wednesday to…the Afghan Parliament, the governor of Farah Province, Rohul Amin, said that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to a legislator, Mohammad Naim Farahi…. The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred…. Everyone was crying…watching that shocking scene.’ Mr. Farahi said he had talked to someone he knew personally who had counted 113 bodies being buried, including…many women and children” (NYT, May 6, 2009).”http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/03/unspeakable-the-black-book-of-imperial-terrorism/

I agree with nomad. Blacks (and White Liberals), on the whole, gave Obama a HUGE pass, particularly on drones and deportations. He was FAR WORSE than Bush on both counts. And if Bush had talked about Blacks the way Obama did, there would have been way more outcry. But as the first Black president, It seems that Blacks felt a need to protect him from his enemies.

This shows that black people did not completely abandon their morals during the Obamage. This group condemned him for his murderous policies back in 2013. If only more of us had had such integrity. We should not have waited til the white guy became president to start protesting.

“The Revered Anthony Evans says, “I do not know what to say after the pronouncement of this evil policy. This policy has led me to a life of prayer for the soul of this administration and for this President. Anyone who has had anything to do with formulating a policy like this either in the Bush or Obama administration will have to answer before God one day. May God have mercy on their souls.”
Rev Evans continued to ask where the outcry against such a policy is, saying “Where are the loud the mouths and the so-called drum majors for justice when it comes to correcting this president and this administration on this evil policy. Where are you Al Sharpton?? Where are you Jesse Jackson?? Where are you Ben Jealous?? Where are you John Lewis?? Where are you members of the Black caucus? Where are the Catholic bishops?? Where are you “The American Way”? Where are you Rev. Jim Wallis? Where are you Pastor T.D. Jakes? Pastor Creflo Dollar? Where are you Joseph Lowry? Where are the Southern Baptists? Where are you Pastor Joel Osteen? Where are you Dean Alton Pollard? If the church does not speak against this immoral policy we will lose our moral voice, our soul, and our right to represent and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.””

“The black church is not only appalled that this comes out of the administration of the only black president, but we are frightened by the monstrous tendencies that have emerged from this administration. The unleashing of the mechanical drones kill not only their target but everyone that is near who is morally innocent of any crime. The church’s heart cries out for mercy and sanity for such an ill-conceived policy. President Obama has to be roaringly condemned by the entire Christian church for allowing such a policy to emerge from such a promising administration.
NBCI cannot be proud of this, and neither can we be supportive of it. This policy should be condemned by both liberal and conservative and especially those who love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly before God.”
(original link broken. have to send you to my website)https://aislec.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/good-news-the-black-church-speaks-out/

(ANTIMEDIA) An overlooked interview of Maria Zakharova with Russia’s 1 TV Channel, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, on a national Russian TV show has brought insight into the frustration Russia encountered in dealing with the Obama administration over the years. Zakharova suggested President Barack Obama will go down in history as one of America’s evilest presidentshttp://theantimedia.org/interview-russia-views-obama-legacy/

Obama was a disaster for black people. That’s something black people need to take into their hearts and souls and let it marinate on the inside of them for a while. He was awful. Write that message with 10 foot high letters. He was Trump in black face; and we didn’t even know it.
Well, I did. I called him Bush in black face. Same difference.
(https://youtu.be/0w2mqg46yUE)

…Barack Obama and his administration was allowed to degenerate into killing more people on the planet than I ever thought was even possible for a US president and Barack Obama did that and he did that with eyes open of the so called progressive community, the Democratic Party stalwarts … became cheerleaders every time a bomb was dropped.

Manufacturing black consent? Social engineering? Brainwashing? Whatever. Obama was the tool by which it was accomplished. He was the insidious weapon.

Back in late August of 2013, Obama threatened to launch airstrikes against Syria. Polls showed that 40 percent of Black Americans would have supported such an airstrike, compared to only 38 percent of whites and a smaller percentage of Hispanic Americans.

It is true that only minorities of any American ethnicity supported Obama’s threatened strike, but this was the first poll in the history of polling in which more Black people were for a warlike action than white people. Compare that to the only 7 percent of Blacks that supported an invasion of Iraq, a decade earlier. Obama has had his effect.

Now we see the supreme and awful irony. America’s first black president is responsible for slavery taking place in a once prosperous African country and his role is covered up by people who once would have condemned his actions.
Black people defended Muammar Gaddafi if no one else did. American presidents made a show of castigating Gaddafi, calling him crazed, fanatical, dictatorial and mentally ill. Black Americans were unanimous in their support whenever he was attacked, whether militarily or even rhetorically. But that support ended when he fell under Obama’s cross hairs. Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency was a curse on black America’s political heritage
.https://www.blackagendareport.com/obama_brought_slavery_to_libya

For those of you who just hate the hell out of President Obama I respectfully request you actually study the Constitution of the United State.

First they created a Congress! Afterwards they created an office of the president; however to make certain that the President did not have any power they gave congress power over the position.

The fact that it is stated that the President is the most powerful person on earth is really not true. The leader of the House can block any move the President makes and the Senate majority Leader is equally powerful.

Both of those positions have been filled by Republican who have pledged to make President Obama a failed President.

If anyone has paid attention to the past 7 years plus the current activities of the new administration they would realize that there has been and continues to be a constant effort to prove that President Obama (a Black man) was a failure and therefore no “Black person need apply” is now the unspoken thought.

While those of you who do not understand politics, I wish you a happy day as you celebrate the undermining of your own future.

“For those of you who just hate the hell out of President Obama I respectfully request you actually study the Constitution of the United State.” Ok, where is the following stated in the Constitution?
“The leader of the House can block any move the President makes and the Senate majority Leader is equally powerful.” I thought a two thirds majority of Congress was required to override a presidential veto? Correct me if I’m wrong, can’t the president appoint people without the ok of Congress? Didn’t Obama appoint a number of people that way? Thanks for clearing up my confusion on this question.

gro jo Did the Judge Garland get appointed? Please pay attention. The congress has the “Power of the Purse” They authorize the President a budget which he must operate within.

It is useless to ask people to read the Constitution, because they would rather go on what they are told.

The leader of the Senate lowered the required vote to a majority to appoint the new Republican Judge.They voted to keep Judge Garland out.

The President and his Administration may hire within the Administration, write instructions called Executive orders, which are to his personnel, Cabinet Leaders and Departments. Cabinet leaders have powers which are established by laws which were created and approved by congress.

His veto’s can be overridden by the Congress.

When you have a majority Republican Party and you have a number of Democrats that vote with the Republican Party you can control the President and he will be required to compromise to get anything done.

Members of Congress do not vote the party they vote their will.

I understand you believe you have capped me with your “Correct me if I’m wrong, can’t the president appoint people without the ok of Congress? Didn’t Obama appoint a number of people that way? Thanks for clearing up my confusion on this question.”

Afrofem: In your case I have nothing constructive to add. You probably have not even managed a first level office yet, yet you feel qualified to pass judgement on the first Black person to be President of the United States.

During my lifetime I have witnessed highly qualified Blacks starting with Adam Clayton Powell and moving forward. He was actually banned from the floor because the members said he did something wrong. Yet his constituents continued to send him to congress. I have spoken to Senior ranking Black officer who have been sidelined into nothing jobs and retired with lower grades. I witness B.O Davis Jr. be insulted by having his juniors promoted above him.

You can follow the history of the successful rise of Blacks in this nation and if you are not blind and stupid you will realize that each of them have been held back.

You failed to pay attention to the Senate Majority Leader when he said he intended to make President Obama a one term President and you failed to see how they failed to give him the respect that was due a President.

You along with the other Obama haters, who do not understand anything about POWER and the workings of the government preferred to complain about The Presidents failures.

You constantly comment about a subject you have no real information about. Do you really believe that under any circumstances that President Obama could have fired the Head of the FBI.

In the last 100 days you have seen the difference between a President who has the support of the Congress and a President who had a Congress that set about the task of destroying him. How many votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Why did the Congress vote against President Obama when he wanted to take action in Syria and turn around and tell the world how wonderful President Trump was when he did what he said President Obama should not do.

President Obama has not set the Blacks back. Blacks that did not get to stand in the sun rays of his office decided to spend their time assisting the White “Black haters” in keeping him down in the barrel with the rest of the crabs.

I hope I have not somehow insulted anyone so this article will be unsuitable for those anti Obama people. If it is I apologize ahead of time for the sensitive feelings I have hurt.

Me, I feel that I am so proud of that man an his family that I am bursting with joy that he actually managed to get through 8 years without a blemish.

I will be here a little while longer so I will be telling everyone Barack Hussein Obama II what a wonderful man and President 8 years without a war!

I’m not sure how you define “war”. I think dropping bombs, deploying missiles and directing drone counts as war, especially when you and your family are on the receiving end of the bombs, missiles and drones.

barack Obama was quite different from continental black americans, raised by a white family, of course. some continental black Americans are raised by whites. by continental I mean blacks raised in the contiguous 48 states. we have a shared heritage of slavery. that is not in Obama’s lineage. neither on his fathers or mothers side. likewise being raised outside the black community he doesn’t have the run ins with the law and relatives mistreated by the police that is a part of growing up black in America.

and yet we are more loyal to him than we are to our homegrown black leaders. that always struck me as kind of odd and suggests to me that some sophisticated cognitive manipulation was being employed on the black community. to cause them to love him so.

For your commentators:
The word war has a special meaning. No matter how many bombs are dropped it is not a “WAR” until nations or groups are fighting each other. In the real world words have meaning and it takes a long time for the meaning of word to change. Every thing President Obama has done was being done and continues now that he is out of office.

As far as I know, the1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, with neither side able to claim outright victory.
From Abagon:

“I was kind of addressing this, saying, yes we voted for a black for president, that is true, but we haven’t voted for someone from the black community. He was a black from the white community”

I believe Jesse Jackson ran for President. I believe Jesse Jackson was from the Black community.

I believe in numbers and:

“In addition, there were 37,144,530 non-Hispanic blacks, which comprised 12.1% of the population. This number increased to 42 million according to the 2010 United States Census, when including Multiracial African Americans, making up 14% of the total U.S. population.”

The majority of blacks are living in 10 southeast states where they are outvoted by the whites. “The electoral collage makes their votes meaningless”. I wish I could underline that information.

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/us-states-with-the-largest-relative-african-american-populations.html
“Rank US States With The Largest Relative African American Populations Alone Or In Combination With Other Races, Per 2010 US Census
1 District of Columbia 50.7% African American
2 Mississippi 37.3% African American
3 Louisiana 32.4% African American
4 Georgia 31.4% African American
5 Maryland 30.1% African American
6 South Carolina 28.5% African American
7 Alabama 26.4% African American
8 North Carolina 21.6% African American
9 Delaware 21.0% African American
10 Virginia 19.9% African American

This page was last modified on March 2, 2017."

The balance of the United States contains a large population of whites; therefore the only way a black can be elected is for the whites to vote that person in.

Most of the comments on this site show a lack of knowledge of the constitution and how the government functions. During President Obama term millions of blacks were hired and moved up the ladder in both the government and outside businesses, yet your commentators only find those things that they seem to believe he should have done. His reduction in the prisons, which President Trump is reversing was not given any credit.

It seemed to me that some one was almost celebrating the fact that his programs are being rolled back, which is unprecedented in normal changes of administrations. No understanding that it is not anti-Obama it is anti-black.

Blaming President Obama for the problems in Chicago is an example of the foolishness of thought. The federal government has no jurisdiction within the state or city when it comes to such matters. The mayor could have requested the city be placed under federal jurisdiction, however that means the military
would have had to be stationed in the city. I am certain that millions of dollars of federal money was put into the food, drug rehabilitation, housing and other programs. Blaming the President for the killings,gangs and other unrest is a supercilious argument made by individuals who could not prove they have any real knowledge of government.

Once again, no notice of the Senate and House working against President Obama. Just a “I hate that man”!

President Obama is gone. He has received the “John F Kennedy Award Profile of Courage for his political courage and ‘enduring commitment to democratic ideals”, yet your commentators continue to be blind to the reality of the picture.

I hope you did not think that I meant you alone when I referred to the barrel. I am referring to all of those individuals who have no experience in venturing into the upper levels of either private management or government. They have not been privy to conversations where powerful leaders have openly voiced their opposition to any person of color being acceptable for leadership and the demand that they toe the line or else. They do not know that no position is above others, who will support or oppose and actively attempt to destroy. Think once more of Senator McConnell and John Boehner in the first term.

“..we have a shared heritage of slavery. that is not in Obama’s lineage. neither on his fathers or mothers side. likewise being raised outside the black community he doesn’t have the run ins with the law and relatives mistreated by the police that is a part of growing up black in America.”

That is the crux of the matter.

Obama, Allen Shaw and other people who look Black, but are not of the Black/African slave descent community are essentially clueless about what it really means to grow up Black in America:

◉ That day when you are four or five and your realize that you are considered less than other children. In your childish brain you think it is because of something you did instead of the social system you were born into.

◉ The time you and your family are stopped by the police and the cops disrespect your father right in front of your mother and your siblings. You see him clench his jaw so that he won’t say anything to provoke a beatdown. He drives home seething with rage. You are angry and bewildered by the cops behavior.

◉ You are in a line with your grandmother in a store and the White clerk makes a point of waiting on the White women in line behind you. You look up at your grandmother with indignation and she is stony faced. She knows that protesting will only make things worse.

◉ You attend ramshackle schools with second hand textbooks. Many of the teachers couldn’t care less whether you learn anything or not. Most of them think you are intellectually inferior and therefore incapable of learning, so they make minimal efforts to teach you anything at all.

◉ Everytime you turn on the TV, all of the Black folk are depicted as dumb, lazy and immoral. That is in stark contrast to the relatives, neighbors and friends who are highly intelligent, work 12 hour days and are scrupulous in their dealings with everyone they know. As a child, you wonder about this disconnect between what you see in your community and how your community is perceived by outsiders.

Obama never dealt with these scenarios or others common to slave descent Black people. The pain that ordinary Black people carry every day of their lives was never a part of his life. He merely triangulated Black people and White people to achieve his own selfish ends. He did it so skillfully that people like Allen Shaw didn’t even feel the shoes that scampered across his back for eight years.

You have made an assumption which is the bases of the problem. You believe that something happened to you that did not happen to someone else.

That because someone did not cry out that they are suffering the same indignation as you; however they did not let it fill them with hate. They somehow do not know what happened to you.

You want to hate President Obama because he is not black enough or he did not do enough for blacks.

Which one is it?

His father was black, he suffered some problems being a mixed breed child, which you do not understand. For all practical purposes he did not get to set in the car and see his father, he had to grow up without a father. In fact because of the circumstances of his life he even loss his mother, in a sense when he was palmed off on his grandmother, who was a redneck from Kansas and who had to learn how to even treat a mixed race child. Your inability to have any compassion for a person who was not fortunate enough to have a mother and father family relationship is sad. You are so consumed with hate that it has blinded you to the facts that are present.

You are are attempting to play like your life is an unknown book. Millions of blacks have lived with the problems you describe. You have this feeling that you are privy to some experience that has not been described and experience over and over and over and over and over!

I do not know if you live in the south east or some other community; however it is rare today that the situation you described would occur anywhere except in some backwoods community that a black family has decided to remain in.

Today the victim would be a Muslim or foreign speaking person with brown skin, who would not be from Sub Sahara Africa. After the Korean and Vietnam war you would witness the same treatment of the foreign wife’s of service personnel.

I realize that to some blacks no mistreatment is equal to their mistreatment.

Once again the upward mobility of blacks proves that when they apply themselves and educate themselves they improve themselves. Those that choose to live the past and blind themselves with hate will be treated in such a manner that more hate is the only expected results.

Do not attempt to accuse others of lack of knowledge or experience that you think you have more of.

“Once again take a course in US Government.”
Why, what good are you if you can’t answer simple questions? Obama could and did fire people he didn’t want. Do you remember general McChrystal? That bozo was stupid enough to talk sh*t about Obama and Bidden in front of a journalist, he was given the choice to retire or be fired.
“The congress has the “Power of the Purse” They authorize the President a budget which he must operate within.” You are babbling Shaw, the purse has nothing to do with appointing Ambassadors, cabinet officers, judges, etc. The fact that you think it does shows your ignorance, nothing more, so yes, I “capped” (whatever that means) you. As usual you don’t know what you’re talking about so I’ll leave you alone.
Afrofem wrote: “Obama, Allen Shaw and other people who look Black, but are not of the Black/African slave descent community are essentially clueless about what it really means to grow up Black in America”. Really? Lots of “authentic” Black American hustlers are willing and able to sell their people for a pat on the head, does the name Clarence Thomas ring a bell? A number of other blacks, born under foreign suns have led struggles for Black emancipation, Hubert H. Harrison and Stokley Carmichael come to mind. So the claim that there’s something special about the Black American psyche strikes me as a sentimental evasion of the failure of Blacks of this generation to assess their situation and come up with serious political programs. Obama never promised anybody anything, he was taken up by the Black community after he showed he could convince whites to vote for him. Having no program to speak of, fantasy took over. The election became a spectator sport. Both Blacks and Whites were invested in the show of electing the first black as president. Obama lived up to the low expectations placed on him.

“… it is rare today that the situation you described would occur anywhere except in some backwoods community that a black family has decided to remain in.”

In your dreams, Allen Shaw! This stuff still goes on to this day; with more pronounced and depressing results.

To me, it is even worse because years ago we at least had something called community. Many Black children don’t get to experience those tight knit networks of family, friends and neighbors that acted as buffers for Black children of the 20th century.

Now Black kindergarteners are criminalized, handcuffed and stuffed into the school to prison pipeline. That may be “progress” to you, it is the opposite to me.

“Lots of “authentic” Black American hustlers are willing and able to sell their people for a pat on the head, does the name Clarence Thomas ring a bell? A number of other blacks, born under foreign suns have led struggles for Black emancipation, Hubert H. Harrison and Stokley Carmichael come to mind.”

Valid points. Those currents have always been present in Black/African American society.

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“…the failure of Blacks of this generation to assess their situation and come up with serious political programs.”

Black folk, like all other Americans have in a sleepwalking state for the past 40 years. Ferguson was a wake-up call. Yet, mobilization is not organization. I think it will take some time before the current generation comes up with and begins to execute an effective plan.

Some have already gone astray, seduced by millions of dollars of funding from the non-profit/NGO/foundation industrial complex. Others have already been jailed or killed. Only a relatively small percent will survive and do the work necessary to build serious political and economic programs.

You want to hate President Obama because he is not black enough or he did not do enough for blacks.
Which one is it?

that’s one reason. I don’t think anybody hates him because hes not black enough. and even then it would be his state of mind that was not black enough, not his skin. it would be the mind given to him by his white family, not his black father, who he never knew. the mind given to him by his family and the CIA, which was one and the same. I guess you could hate him for that. I don’t for that. for that he was a helpless mind control victim. I cant hate him for not being able to overcome that powerful mind programming.

I cant really hate him for not doing enough for blacks.

I hate him for his treachery and the carnage he caused throughout the world in my name. as if he were acting according to my wishes as a black citizen. I hate him for sullying the honor of black americans.

oh no. he was definitely representing us. even if just as president . he postured black. he pandered black. he insinuated me in his heinous crimes. I didn’t expect any thing from him. he did that regardless of whether I expected anything or not. barrels aint got nothing to do with it except the one your head is stuck in, if you want to go down that path.

gro jo
“You are babbling Shaw, the purse has nothing to do with appointing Ambassadors, cabinet officers, judges, etc. The fact that you think it does shows your ignorance, nothing more, so yes, I “capped” (whatever that means) you. As usual you don’t know what you’re talking about so I’ll leave you alone.”

Appointed yes, approved by congress yes! Section 2 “He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”

You missed the point, the FBI was not investigating Obama. I spoke of one situation only the Director of the FBI. The same as the Syrian bombing that congress voted NO. No money for any follow up action that might result if the President bombed. Consider the depth of each situation and see it separately

“A number of other blacks, born under foreign suns have led struggles for Black emancipation, Hubert H. Harrison and Stokley Carmichael come to mind. So the claim that there’s something special about the Black American psyche strikes me as a sentimental evasion of the failure of Blacks of this generation to assess their situation and come up with serious political programs.”

I have never said anything about the black psyche (whatever that is).

“Both Blacks and Whites were invested in the show of electing the first black as president.”

Well no truer statement. There is a difference. From the very beginning the Republican Party (then minority leader McConnell made his remarks: — President Obama, interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” recorded on Sept. 12, 2012, and aired on Sept. 23

“It was no surprise, because the senator from Kentucky, who just spoke, announced at the beginning, four years ago, exactly what his strategy would be. He said, his number-one goal was to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president.” ” and Both Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley started their anti-Obama movement.

This anti Obama conversation is nothing but a continuation of the same rhetoric of Dr. West. He has kept up a constant drum beat against President Obama from the beginning of this adventure.

Finally, the racial makeup of this nation places the black race near the bottom in numbers of people. The merging of blacks and whites and Hispanic is creating a new group called other or mixed. As time goes by and those who have identified as black, but who are mixed will change their identity on the census and the black race will start to decline in numbers. I think that when President Obama came to the mainland he did not consider himself a ‘black’ man. He changed after he was here and realized the “one drop rule” and worked in the “black community” and of course met his wife.

Shaw, you’re showing your usual confusion. The whole advice and consent thing is a seesaw between the executive and legislative powers. A strong president like LBJ shoved his programs down Congress’s throat. When you have somebody like Obama, he grovels in front of Congress. How did LBJ do it? He realized something you wrote. “Members of Congress do not vote the party they vote their will.” LBJ made sure he knew the weak points of the members of Congress and put maximum pressure on them to get what he wanted. Are you going to tell me that during Obama’s terms members of Congress were impervious to such tactics? “I have never said anything about the black psyche (whatever that is).”
I was addressing Afrofem when I wrote this, not you. I won’t try to respond to the rest of your comments because I’m not sure I understand them.

“I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.
Lyndon B. Johnson ”

I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years. [Touting his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs, LBJ confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One]
Lyndon B. Johnson

“Johnson’s popularity within his own party plummeted as well. When it appeared that he might face a stiff challenge for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, Johnson announced his decision not to run for re-election. “I shall not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” ”

The entire Republican Party has voted as a block since they took over at the end of Obama’s 1st year.

Thank you for not wiping out my entire remark; however I hope you understand that you removed the sting from my remarks by replacing the “N” word with “colored man”. No one will understand the relationship of the black vs white when you cover up the hate that I experienced.

I doubt if Johnson referred to blacks as “colored men” until he made his conversion, after MLK.

Why do you want to hide a word that was real to so many of us in our lives? That word then and today is so common that it seems like you are living in a bubble!

You even modified the page of the reference to hide the “N” word.

You can run but you cannot hide from the racial problems that exist in this nation.

Johnson was a prejudice man from Texas who after years of existing as a prejudiced man appeared to change when he became President.

I wanted gro jo to know that and also that he was actually technically a one term President.

Now that President Trump is in office some whites are already reflecting there anti black thoughts publicly. Are you going to hide that also?

“Members of Congress do not vote the party they vote their will.”
“The entire Republican Party has voted as a block since they took over at the end of Obama’s 1st year.”
So, which is it, they vote as a block or they vote their will? According to this article some republicans backed Obama in 2008. In 2012, Obama’s vote among Cuban-Americans increased from 35% to 48%.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_and_conservative_support_for_Barack_Obama_in_2008http://www.republicansforobama.org/
“What happened to the strong man Johnson?” He retired having passed some of the most progressive laws in the history of the USA, especially for Blacks.

Yes it is true at the end President Johnson was a “good old boy” Now what other bills did he pass personally, without congress.

Please go back and see how many Black people he put into his government and then be honest and go see how many black people President Obama put into the government.

I was there. Were you there at that time. (1963) I was leaving Montgomery, Alabama after living there from 1961, integrating the all white world!

President Johnson got into office on the death of John Kennedy and his administration was full of the Kennedy powerful. You remember Bobby, who was killed, was the Attorney General.

Go back and look and study. The same power group that supported Johnson is still supporting the black movement. That is why President Obama got the Profile of Courage Award from the Kennedy Foundation.

Please recognize those who are attempting to advance the cause of the black race in this nation.

“…recognize those who are attempting to advance the cause of the black race in this nation.

That would be the Prison abolition movement, some in the Movement for Black Lives and countless Black men and women fighting for various Black causes everyday——–not that pimp, Obama or the phony Kennedys.

“Your lack of understanding of the government is amazing.” One as ignorant as you should be careful labeling others. If you were there as you claim, you’ll remember that the Kennedys were getting nowhere in Congress with the Civil Right Bill. It took LBJ’s cajoling of the leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives to get it passed. I appreciate your ‘lecture’ on the proper roles of presidents and legislatures but in this instance, it can verily be said that LBJ passed this bill.
“you do remember MLK don’t you.” Yes, aside from giving LBJ the “we shall overcome line”, what role did he play in passing the bill? You are under the delusion that you can intimidate me by throwing out names like MLK, Kennedy, etc., two can play at that game. Robert Caro, have you heard of him and his multi volume bio of LBJ? Consult it to prevent exposing your ignorance any further. http://www.robertcaro.com/the-books/
How come you’re quiet on Obama’s republican backers and the fact that he increased his Cuban-American vote, staunch supporters of the republicans, from 35% in 2008 to 48% in 2012?

They are still writing books about Abraham Lincoln. I read two of them and one of the first is now pretty much out of favor and the latest is is Team of Rivals. It means nothing.

No, I was not intimidating you. You have proven over the years that you are not interested in facts; however I respond to you because other read what I say, I hope.

I promise that I will make every attempt to not respond to you anymore unless I have something to offer to the Abagon site.

I will not read any volume written by a paid biographer.

I suspect that after eight years in office President Obama is going to have plenty of negative garbage pitched at him. Starting with you, who does not understand the limits of the President, Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley who have been against the President from day-one, who have felt that President Obama was a failure from day one.

“The Donald” has dedicated himself to destroying all of the legacy that he can of the past eight years. President Obama will be like that Egyptian Ruler whose name was wiped out and we will end up with a 12 year Bush Administration and at least 8 or 12 year Trump Administration and the name Obama will not be seen or spoken. There will be no history of a Black President of the United States.
Read Article II of the Constitution concerning the President. Please do not confuse yourself. The Presidents power is controlled by the Congress. Read
Article I.

Article. II.
Section. 1.

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Section. 2.

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Section. 3.

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
Section. 4.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article IV
Section. 3.

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Article. V.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

“So all MLK did was give a speech. I give up.” Only because you don’t know what you’re talking about.
“You should do a more careful study of the life of MLK.” You should take your own advice because you can’t tell me what and how MLK helped pass the Civil Right Bill.
“I bet you Mr Robert Caro is white Johnson hero worshiper.” I don’t know about the worshiper bit, but he’s white and spent several decades researching the life of LBJ.
“No, I was not intimidating you. You have proven over the years that you are not interested in facts; however I respond to you because other read what I say, I hope.

I promise that I will make every attempt to not respond to you anymore unless I have something to offer to the Abagon site…Blah,blah,blah” Whatever.

The fact that there was a first “Black” president of the US in the early days of the 21st century will be an enduring lesson in how American institutions always elevate Black figureheads to high office when they are in decline after years of White mismanagement.

Then the White Power structure (government, business interests and the media) uses the Black figurehead as a scapegoat for the decline. Unwary Black people who are awed by “Black Faces in High Places” and “First Black This and That” will reflexively defend the Black figurehead. That unthinking defense of the Black figurehead helps to intensify popular White anger on the Black figurehead and all Black people. In this way, The White Power Structure redirects popular anger for their misdeeds and screw-ups onto the shoulders of Black folk instead of themselves.

The Black figureheads usually are in on the game. The masses of Black people are not. The Black figureheads are generally well compensated with financial and social rewards. The masses of Black people fall further behind while they waste time lauding and defending the cynical Black figurehead.

Not only will there be an enduring history of “a Black President of the United States”, Obama’s presidency will be required reading for future scholars on how to snooker masses of people with “hope and change”.

brilliant analysis! did you see the video of wnen Ali was asked if he wanted to be president? check it out. he said “The ship must be sinking” if they let a black man be president. the brother was prescient.

nomad, did you forget to take your medicine again? Your link had nothing to do with Obama, hence my question. Your act is a little transparent, that’s why you’re hypersensitive. As far as I know, CNN and Obama are not the same so “why I hate barack Obama” followed by a link about military intelligence infiltration of CNN seemed a stretch to me.
“@gro jo
my apologies again while waiting for moderation.
Summary: ‘Trump is president because Barack Obama is a f%$#@g buffoon.’”
Bull. You are free to make irrational leaps of logic like that and I’m free to call it bs. No apologies warranted.

Afrofem: About your post about President Obama not disappearing, you are totally correct.

By your own admission “No black need apply rings true”. If a black person does the black people will think he is suppose to pick all of them up and push them to the top.

I hope you read the Article II, in case you had not read it before. Most people do not understand the weak position of the president.

(When the congress gets tired of “the Donald” they will put a block on him that will shock most people”)

They do not understand that the president is not the president of the black people who are in charge of United States, he is a black person that the white people trust to be the leader and expect him to act the same as a “white leader”.

Since blacks make up only 12% of the population (not counting mixed race) and further most of them are concentrated in 5 states with more in 5 other states, they are always going to be an insignificant force in this nation. At least 30 states have less then 3 % blacks and that includes the military which has a large number of blacks.

Those states alone will make certain that no black need apply unless that black does as they require.

And further since among blacks there is no trust of other blacks and the highest % of blacks in any state is about 37% (did not count Washington, DC, it is not a state) the very mental process of blacks will keep the blacks as a group out of power. Please note how little credit that gro jo gives to MLK and how highly President Johnson is praised.

The words you should use for President Obama is ‘Uncle Tom or oreo”, because he dared to enter the white competition and won.

@nomad You will be older than I am before you see a black President from what ever you call the black community.

The black community is becoming smaller and smaller and is being concentrated in states where blacks are a minority and the whites intend to keep them nearly in bondage.

No matter how many super rich black people are concentrated around the large cities in the south east the balance of the states is full of whites that will control the politics.

Idealism is wonderful, it keeps hope alive; however, without the help of whites the blacks do not have the numbers needed.

The President of the United States must always represent all of the people. You are blind to the help that the past President gave the black community and you seek the negative and ignore the positive.

the pursuit of upward mobility through cultivation of white folks’ political favor is not confined to base and conniving caricatures like David Clarke. Sadly, it has become the main route to political fortune in Black America. The best (or worst) example is Barack Obama, who spent a lifetime making himself acceptable to the more politically correct section of the white ruling class. Obama was not a Black leader; he was the Black politician most acceptable and attractive to white Democrats and moneybags – “articulate and bright and clean” in the whitest kind of way, not “like Jesse Jackson.”

What’s more dangerous: a Black opportunist that curries favor with the worst elements of the White Man’s Party, but whose primary effect on Black politics is to make Black folks more vigilant, or a smooth Black operator who is so good at gaining the confidence of the ruling class that they entrust him to wage war on most of the world, and to impose capitalist austerity at home, knowing his mere presence will pacify Blacks and neutralize them as a force for change?

“The black community is becoming smaller and smaller and is being concentrated in states where blacks are a minority and the whites intend to keep them nearly in bondage.”

Two faulty assumptions:

✧ The size of a community has little to do with the economic and political power it wields. The American Jewish community is 3 percent of the population and they do quite well, both economically and politically.

✧ What Whites intend to do is less important than what Black people choose to do. All it would take is a small determined group of Black people to provide leadership and the course of history could change. We don’t know the future.

The first Black U.S. president, Barack Obama, was among the most aggressive defenders of white supremacy in history — defending the accumulated advantages that colonialism provided to western European nations, settler states (like the U.S.) and citizens — having launched an ongoing military offensive aimed at strangling the Chinese giant and preventing an effective Eurasian partnership with Russia. The first phase of the offensive, the crushing of Libya in 2011, allowed the United States to complete the effective military occupation of Africa, through AFRICOM.

after obama, we need to shake off the cognitive dissidence and admit just how anti-black he really was. with friends like these, we dont need no enemies.
with black presidents like this, we dont need no donald trumps.

@abagon and @nomad plus all of those other would be the greatest if they could only have the chance to be picked to be some important person other than standing on the sidelines looking into the arena.

All that President Obama had to do is be able to prove to the 86% of the US population that he could be given the responsibilities of the President of the United States and concern himself with the bigger picture.

He was not picked to be the president of the black people. Black people should pick their own representatives to speak to the government about black problems. As far as I am aware they have the NAACP, Urban League, Black Muslims and other newly formed organizations. They have the ability to elect black members to the House of Representative and maybe even to the Senate.

Each of the individuals that are elected to the federal government have the total US to concern themselves with. The 14% of the population deserves no more than 14 % of the thought.

During the 8 years of the Obama Administration many blacks were hired due to his policies and the policies of his cabinet. Many good thing happened which the individuals that comment on this site have not paid any attention to.

During my working career, with the exception of my three years in the Black military I was always assigned to organizations where I was responsible for white service personnel. Rarely did I supervise blacks. I did not give much thought to blacks because my job was to make the organization run. Some of the supervisors who were in my department had blacks working for them and they were fair in the treatment of their workers. I never thought about a persons race, ethnics, religion or any of the other separators of mankind. My job was to treat each individual equally and to assure that my supervisors did the same.

So you can spend the balance of your life complaining about what President Obama did or did not do; however, you will never convince any successful black that aspires to be the President of the United States that they should concentrate on black problems.

@abagon and @nomad plus all of those other would be the greatest if they could only have the chance to be picked to be some important person other than standing on the sidelines looking into the arena.

very presumptuous of you. you have no idea what youre talking about but feel you have to defend obama at all costs. hes not president anymore. you dont have to defend him anymore. remove the scales from your eyes and realize that you were brainwashed into following him and advocating against your own interests as a black person by sophisticated cia mind manipulation manufacturing of consent pr techniques. you need to unbrainwash. thats my purpose, to help unbrainwash you. obama was a devil. the sooner you realize it the better. too bad you couldnt realize it while he was president. still its necessary to unbrainwash so that you, your children and whoever you may have influence over, do not fall prey to this kind of manipulation in the future. he was a white man in black skin.